The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times reports that Enemalta has been dodging fines despite emissions from Delimara power station. It also says Mario de Marco is sticking to his position not to stand for the election of the PN deputy leader, but has left the door ajar on his future participation within the party.
The Malta Independent says Green MPs are coming to Malta to investigate ‘Dalligate’.
l-orizzont likens the Gozo Hospital to Fort Knox because of the engagement of an excessive number of security officers under the previous government – 77 in all to watch over three gates.
In-Nazzjon says parents of Birkirkara primary school pupils are concerned about an apparent outbreak of scabies. It also says that the prime minister did not know about Jason Micallef’s appointment to the chairmanship of the V-18 Foundation.
The overseas press
Libya Herald reports gunmen besieging the foreign and justice ministries in Tripoli were demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan’s government. The militias were not satisfied with the approval on Sunday of a law that excludes all former Colonel Gaddafi loyalists still holding public office. Ali Zeidan and the president of the National Assembly, Mohamed Magarief, would have to resign along with four other ministers unless the new law was interpreted differently. Both were diplomats under the Colonel's but defected to the opposition and gone into exile in 1980.
The EU Commissioner for Taxation and Customs Union Algirdas Šemeta has told the Financial Times that the European Commission was planning new measures to tackle tax fraud and evasion. He said in the next few months the Commission would present new rules under which all EU member states would be obliged to automatically exchange banking data about the capital income and dividends of large investment companies. The UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain recently signed an agreement on automatic banking data exchange.
The New Yorker says Russia, the Syrian regime's main ally at the UN, has strongly condemned Israel's third air raid in Syria. Moscow expressed concern over the threat of foreign military intervention and warned Western countries, especially the United States, to stop using the issue of chemical weapons for political purposes. Israel is reported to have told President Assad it did not intend to interfere in Syria's civil war.
The Moscow Times reports thousands of Russian protesters gathered in Moscow to demand the release of prisoners who were arrested in a demonstration 12 months ago. Riot police assembled in streets near to the Kremlin, but officials said no serious incidents had taken place after the rally broke up. The state-run RIA news agency said that six people had been detained by police for disorder.
Ansa says tributes from across the Italian political spectrum to seven-time Christian Democrat premier Giulio Andreotti have been flowing in following the postwar political giant's death yesterday, aged 94. Ansa quotes President Giorgio Napolitano remembered him as someone “who only history can judge” while Prime Minister Enrico Letta said Andreotti was a constant, extremely high-profile protagonist on Italy's political scene after World War II. Former premier Silvio Berlusconi called him “a man of government who made Italian history” and a victim of “an unjust battle” waged by the Italian left. Berlusconi was outraged when Andreotti was given a 24-year jail term in 2002 for conspiracy to murder a muckraking journalist, Mino Pecorelli, in 1979.
USA Today reports that three women who went missing about a decade ago have been found alive in a residential area just south of downtown Cleveland, and a man was arrested. Cheering crowds gathered on the street near the home where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight were found earlier in the day. The girls were 16, 14 and 20 when they disappeared. One of the girls escaped from the house with the help of a neighbour and alerted the police.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the man leading a US Air Force programme for preventing sexual assault has been arrested on suspicion of drunkenly groping a woman in an Arlington, parking lot. The police said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41 – shown with several apparent cuts on his face in a police booking photo – was charged with attempting to rape the woman after he touched her breast and buttocks. He has been removed from his position overseeing the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Programme pending the outcome of the investigation.
Italy’s Minister for Equal Opportunities Josefa Idem has suggested a six-ministry task force to tackle the phenomenon of violence against women, which she says “has now “become rampant”. Ansa reports Idem pointed out that there were 127 women killed in Italy last year and 25 since January 1, adding that this was “unacceptable”. She said the problem, which she described as “a real slaughter”, needed to be addressed also by the ministries of justice, the interior, health, education and labour and not just her ministry.
Avvenire says Pope Francis has called on Christians to examine their conscience every day of their lives to see how God had guided them. In his homily during his daily celebrated mass in the Vatican's Santa Marta hotel, where he has been living since the conclave in March that elected him Pope Benedict XVI's successor, the Pontiff said, “The exercise is beneficial because it means we become truly aware of what the Lord has done within our hearts.”
An Indian woman has given birth to a set of twins in a train – the second time in four years. Ians news agency reports Zubin Nisha was travelling from Mumbai to her native village to give birth when she went into labour. Staff alerted the medical staff of the provincial capital, Lucknow. But before the train reached the next station, the woman had already given birth to twin boys – brothers to another set of twins, a four-year-old boy and girl. Her husband, a Muslim, told Iindian journalists, “It seems Allah has decided that my children should come into the world in this way.”